One of the little idiosyncrasies of The Job is that they like you to stay in shape. This is a noble goal and standard in and of itself, but being The Job, asking you to maintain a culture of fitness is not enough. Nope, they’re gonna test you.

It does not matter how fit a lifestyle or how much working out you do, the semiannual Physical Readiness test is always a hassle and a blow to the ego, especially if you have a “writer’s physique” like I do. And I don’t mean the physique of the skinny coffeehouse writer always working on his next play. I mean the other side of the stereotype spectrum.

I’m not quite Orson Welles.

I prefer to claim the title Chubby Adonis.

Anyways, we have this little semiannual suckage, for which I usually fast and ramp up the exercise for (completely contrary to the program’s goals) and now it is done for another six months. So now I commit to my own semiannual tradition: the grand breakfast pig-out, for which I am sure to feel guilty over later.

This time, it’s at Charlie’s Cafe on Granby in Norfolk, VA, where I’m having the Granby Plate, recently enjoyed by Tom Hanks as he filmed a movie here.

Mmmmm, chicken fried steak and eggs.

So, I now dig in, followed by some outstanding writing on “ILYAMY” and the “Strategic Deployment” script, then I’m off to run some errands for the day.

Maybe I should have a bacon chaser. . . .